"Balaam the son of Beor": God did not only raise upMoses, Aaron, Miriam, out of their brethren, but He turned the curse of the alien Balaam into a blessing; and that, not for their righteousness, but against their deserts, out of His own truth and righteousness. Not that the curse of Balaam could in itself have hurt them; but, in proportion to his reputation, it would have infused great energy into their enemies: and its reversal must have struck a great panic into them and into others. Human might having failed in Sihon and Og, Balak sought superhuman. God showed them by their own diviner, that it was against them. Even after they had seduced Israel, through Balaam's devilish counsel, Midian seems to have been stricken by God with panic, and not to have struck a blow Numbers 31:49.
"Answered him": There ought to be a stop here. The answer of Balaam was the blessing which he was constrained to give, instead of the curse which he was hired to pronounce. Grotius explains it, "how Balaam answered, that the only way to injure thee was by tempting thee to idolatry and whoredom".
"From Shittim unto Gilgal": The words are separated by the Hebrew accent from what went before. This is a fresh consideration, referring to mercies under Joshua, and may be made plainer by inserting "remember", as in the Revised Version. Shittim was the Israelites' last station before crossing the Jordan, and Gilgal the first in the land of Canaan; and so God bids them remember all that happened to them between those places - their sin in Shittim and the mercy then shown them, the miraculous passage of the Jordan, the renewal of the covenant at Gilgal. Shittim; the acacia meadow, hod. Ghor-es-Seisaban, was at the southeastern corner of the Ciccar, or Plain of Jordan, some seven miles from the Dead Sea. Gilgal.
"That ye may know the righteousness of the Lord": All these instances of God's interposition prove how faithful he is to his promises, how he cares for his elect, what are his gracious counsels towards them.
Verse 8
"He hath showed thee"; literally, "one has told thee", or, "it has been told thee", i.e. by Moses and in the Law. Septuagint, Αἰ ἀνηγγέλη σοι,"Hath it not been told thee?" What doth the Lord require of thee? The prophets often enforce the truth that the principles of righteous conduct are required from men, and not mere formal worship. This might well be a comfort to the Israelites when they heard that they were doomed to be cast out of their country, and that the temple was to be destroyed, and that the ritual on which they laid such stress would for a time become impracticable. So the inculcation of moral virtues is often connected with the prediction of woe or captivity.
"to do justly": or "judgment"; to exercise public judgment and justice, as a king, among his subjects; to do private and personal justice between man and man; to hurt no man's person, property, and character; to give to everyone their due, and do as he would desire to be done by; which as it is agreeable to the law of God, so to the light of nature, and what is shown, required, and taught by it:
"to love mercy": "being merciful, out of love", "not of necessity, for God loveth a cheerful giver". These acts together contain the whole duty to man, corresponding with and formed upon the mercy and justice of God ;. All which is due, anyhow or in any way, is of judgment; all which is free toward man, although not free toward God, is of mercy.
"to walk humbly with thy God": passive and active obedience towards God. The three moral duties here are summed up by our Lord, "judgment, mercy, and faith". Compare. To walk with God implies constant prayer and watchfulness, familiar yet "humble" converse with God.
